Hypothetically, if Cigarettes After Sex were to write a song about vacation, it would have to be dark. You might guess there would be lyrics about sex and substances and heartbreak—delivered with Greg Gonzalez’s breathy, enigmatic croon—and that these words would sit atop a nightmarishly beautiful backing track built on echoing ocean-mist guitars. And you’d be right, because the band returns today with “Dark Vacay,” the second single off their forthcoming album X’s, and it thankfully delivers on all those elements.
Written and produced by Gonzalez, “Dark Vacay” is actually not about a vacation. As Gonzalez explains in a press release, it’s about a traveling musician trying and failing to sustain a relationship on the road.
“This song is about a romance I had a few years ago,” Gonzalez writes. “We went on tour together & were lucky enough to go to all these wonderful places, mostly having fun at first. As the tour continued though, everything started falling apart & we ended up breaking up by the end of it. I was left wishing that we were somehow able to see all of the beauty around us before it was too late…”
In the opening verse, Gonzalez and his lover hide from the daylight while doing drugs and swilling wine. It already feels foreboding.
In summer I’m living on pills and lines
With someone I love, I don’t really like
Been sleeping on the tile and keeping out the light
Then sipping Château Lafite Rothschild
Then comes the chorus, where Gonzalez acknowledges the darkness hanging overhead and possibly references a porn website.
So come on, come on, dark star
Been loving you and I can’t get enough, dark star
We don’t need Brazzers
Gonzalez wishes they could enjoy the moment, even if everything is doomed.
Feel the world around you
Feel the world surround you
Feel the world around you
Feel it all around you crash
The second verse seemingly takes place after things have fallen apart.
With summertime liquor at five o’clock
Been drinking too heavy on Adderall
I listen to the last message that you left
Then the voice from the suicide hotline
X’s is due out July 12, shortly before the launch a world tour that begins in Montreal on August 31 and wraps in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 19, 2025. As you await the album drop and tour date nearest you, you can read all the lyrics to “Dark Vacay” on Genius now.
